An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is a fictionalized historical account of the German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas (see images of his work here) and his ill-fated 1837 journey to South America. Part travel adventure and part art criticism, Cesar Aira imagines a tragic accident (lightning, disfigurement) and its impact on Rugendas’s relationship with his own work. This is probably Aira’s most straightforward and conventional book (by his standards) and perhaps it is not a bad place for new readers to start, but I prefer his more experimental fiction.